A prospective client wrote me today asking for a time-saving solution to maintain her gift registry. I replied the Bridge's Store and Products would be a good fit for her desire to save time. We were off to a good start. Then, she told me that she wanted a custom, unique website. She said that doesn't want a 'cookie cutter' website.
I had to raise a flag and try to save this person from making a mistake. Why? Whereas a physical store's charm grows as you make it more custom, a website's charm inversely grows with more uniqueness. In other words, do not pack your website with customization and uniqueness. The simpler, more cookie cutter-oriented your website is, the more often the easier it becomes to navigate and help customers. Two examples of websites that offer generic, easy experiences are Google and Facebook.
Google's home page is the ultimate in ease of use. There's little customization nor anything unique about it. It's actually unique by deference of how un-unique it is.
The world's most popular website is a cookie cutter template: Facebook. Remember MySpace.com? You could customize the background, move things around, etc. MySpace failed. Facebook offers everyone the same cookie cutter experience. You fill your cookie cutter Facebook profile with great cookie content. That is a recipe for success.
You have likely heard the proverb: content is king. The same is true for e-commerce stores. Pick a great cookie cutter store to fill with great cookies, aka: your products. Bridge Store is an easy, cookie cutter tool to sell your products.
Thus far, I've touched on ease of use. I would also like to mention the cost of customization. Customization is often expensive and doesn't ensure a return on investment. One may customize an online store for $1,000s. However, that just adds to the investment one must make back before he or she can break even. For example, let's imagine you go to the car dealership. Would you ask for a car but request that it be 20" longer and think that the extra cost to customize it is worth it? And, would a car 20" longer drive any better then one on the lot? Likely not. Remember: Mercedes, BMW, and Audi all come from the lot. Often a car right off the lot is fine. This is especially true for e-commerce and gift registry websites.
Last year, we helped retailers sell $1.3m online. Not one general public shopper wrote one of our retailers and asked for a more customized, unique shopping experience. Meanwhile, many general public shoppers sent our retailers fan mail praising how easy their sites were to buy from.
You often do not need a customized site nor anything unique. You need something simple and easy for yourself and clients. By choosing this path, you'll avoid the cost of a common website design mistake.
Lastly, one may ask: but what if the client really, really wants to customize his or her site and use Bridge's product streaming service? Can Bridge offer this? Sure. Bridge can either do this work or a 3rd party website design company can. But first, well ask something others don't: is there someplace else you may wish to invest your money first rather than in a 20" longer car?